A Prayer for those who wish to serve the Divine—by the Mother
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wPyEkQ3e6E&NR=1

GLORY to Thee, O Lord, who triumphest over every obstacle.

Grant that nothing in us shall be an obstacle in Thy work.

Grant that nothing may retard Thy manifestation.

Grant that Thy will may be done in all things and at every moment.

We stand here before Thee that Thy will may be fulfilled in us, in every element, in every activity of our being, from our supreme heights to the smallest cells of the body.

Grant that we may be faithful to Thee utterly and for ever.

We would be completely under Thy influence to the exclusion of every other.

Grant that we may never forget to own towards Thee a deep, an intense gratitude.

Grant that we may never squander any of the marvellous things that are Thy gifts to us at every instant.

Grant that everything in us may collaborate in Thy work and all be ready for Thy realisation.

Glory to Thee, O Lord, Supreme Master of all realisation.

Give us a faith active and ardent, absolute and unshakable in Thy Victory.

…   more »

The friend who impressed me so deeply in the early years of my Ashram life was KD Sethna who has since become famous both as a poet and a priest of high—or shall I say, spiritual—journalism. I can clearly recapture with my mind's eye his delicate sensitive face which first attracted me with its fine crop of Clirist-like whiskers which he discarded subsequently, to the universal regret of his friends and admirers. For we did admire it without pressing die 'resemblance' any further. And let me add, with a sigh, that those who have never seen him with his whiskers will never be able to appreciate our sigh over its merciless eradication. And then his eyes: how they radiated a keen though not unkind glint of intelligence! For he was nothing if not sympathetic and enthusiastic. Fortunately, he knew where to draw the line when expressing his sympathy in favour of this or that person.

...   more »

Across fields and mountains where rivers run
In the magic of human greatness, swift
Like a song, where unexpected days drift,
There orange and gold dazzle of the swan
Soars in its magnificence which none can
Glimpse but only he who with a prescient gift
Receives in his mortal eyes visions that lift
His deathfulness to the sight of the sun.

Winging day after day, from height to height
It brings to me a fire that sets aflame
Every bit of my smallness, the very cells
Opened to the chant of its love and light:
Whatever carries for me its joy, its name,
In it my soul orange-goldenly dwells.

…   more »

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

...   more »

Indians were pioneer metallurgists and the Indo-Aryan-Dravidian-Munda division among languages is false, claims a Chennai-based Indologist, insisting that Indian culture did not owe it to the Aryan invasion.

“People speaking old versions of the languages in the country were living together and had evolved words to describe advanced metallurgy,” Dr S Kalyanaraman, chairman, Saraswathi Research Foundation, told Deccan Chronicle.

...   more »

Ralph Waldo Emerson (25 May 1803 – 27 April 1882) was an American essayist, philosopher and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s, while he was seen as a champion of individualism and prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. As a result of this ground breaking work he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence". Considered one of the great orators of the time, Emerson's enthusiasm and respect for his audience enraptured crowds. His support for abolitionism late in life created controversy, and at times he was subject to abuse from crowds while speaking on the topic, however this was not always the case. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man." Emerson and other like-minded intellectuals founded the Transcendental Club, which served as a center for the movement. Its first official meeting was held on September 19, 1836. Emerson anonymously published his first essay, Nature, in September 1836. A year later, on August 31, 1837, Emerson delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, The American Scholar, then known as "An Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge"; it was renamed for a collection of essays in 1849. In the speech, Emerson declared literary independence in the United States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe. James Russell Lowell, who was a student at Harvard at the time, called it "an event without former parallel on our literary annals".

...   more »

...   more »

I’ll make strong hardy shoes for the jaguar,
Fit for speeding leaps in depth of the night;
It shall seize great many hunted moods that are
Dreams which come in trueness of sturdy light.

…   more »

---